1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic recording medium, a method of manufacture thereof, and a magnetic read/write apparatus that uses the magnetic recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional in-plane magnetic recording medium, there arises a problem that thermal fluctuation occurs when high recording density is realized by refining recording bits.
To solve this problem, a perpendicular magnetic recording system having perpendicular magnetic anisotropy has recently been proposed.
However, even when the soft back layer is provided, the magnetic recording medium does not have satisfactory performance in read/write characteristics, thermal demagnetization resistance and the resolution of recording, and therefore a magnetic recording medium that is better in these characteristics has been required.
A known technique proposes that crystal grains be refined by the addition of Ta or B to the composition CoCr of the intermediate layer, thereby improving read/write characteristics. However, when using a non-magnetic material, the thermal stability cannot be sufficiently improved.